Beets Kube Soup - an Authentic Meat & Semolina Balls Soup

Today I would like to share Orly Ziv's delicious recipe for a Beets Kube Soup. It's an authentic beets soup with semolina/burgul kube filled with minced meat. This dish is well known and often served in the Kurdish and Iraqi Jewish cuisine.

If you're visiting Israel and want to do a culinary tour or do a cooking class please take a look at Orly's website , culinary fun guaranteed!

Instructions:

Instructions for the soup
1. Heat the oil in a cook pot and fry the onion until caramelized. Add the grated tomatoes and the beets.
2. Add water about half of the cook pot and bring to boil.
3. Add the tomato paste, sugar or silan, salt and lemon juice.
4. Cook until the beetroots are soft.

Instructions for the kube dough
5. Soak the burgul in warm water for about 30 min.
6. Add the semolina, salt and oil to the burgul and knead few min. until soft dough is formed.
7. Set aside about 20 min.

Instructions for the filling
8. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the chopped onion until translucent. Add the minced meat and keep frying until the it gets brown.
9. Add the tomato paste, salt, pepper, baharat, cumin, turmeric and paprika.
10. When the meat is dry (without liquids) take off the fire and add the chopped parsley.
11. Leave to cool before filling the balls. (Can be made a day before and put in refrigerator over night).

Instructions for the kube balls and finishing the soup
1. Wet your hands with oil and make small balls from the dough with a hole in the center.
2. Fill the hole with the filling and close to a ball.
3. Add the balls to the soup and cook together for another 10-15 min.
4. Ready to serve.

For a vegetarian version of this dish, use mushrooms or lentils instead of the meat for the filling.